Timeline

Every time we move, there are new ropes to learn, but it's almost always the same timeline (at least for me). I find that in general, for about two weeks prior to the move and then two weeks following the move, I'm possessed with an almost manic energy. Sleep is hard to come by because my mind won't turn off; food is optional; coffee is sometimes even forgotten as I plow through my To Do list (and sometimes try to take on everyone else's) like a juggernaut. The Man and the children have gotten to the point where they mostly just get out of my way, although the Man does occasionally put his foot down and make me quit to do fun things or just go to bed. During this time, I also try to implement my new cleaning, writing, and exercise schedules because this makes total logical sense to someone who is borderline insane with sleep deprivation.

After the two week post move mark though, I crash. Hard. There are naps. There are long hours sitting in the recliner re-reading comfort books. There are early bed times and over slept alarms. There is utilizing persistently meowing cats to get myself out of bed in the morning (and once they've been fed, there's no going back upstairs to get back in bed so I might as well curl up in the recliner and stare off into space while pretending to write). There is no energy to go run, so I take the dog for a walk, and since he thinks he's still a puppy, he might drag me behind him for a mile or so while I ask plaintively every few steps, "Are we done yet? Can we go home now? Is it time to stop?"

I'm seeing empty spaces on the boys' bookshelf,
which means it's time to find a used bookstore.

Meanwhile the actual settling in continues. The girls' bed doesn't arrive, and I find myself glued to the window watching the UPS guy like a hawk. I put in groceries at the nearest grocery store and instead of giving me four bananas (which I thought I ordered), they give me four bunches of bananas. I make banana bread and take it to a meeting I have for our homeschool co-op, building relationships over shared facepalms. I find a chunk of dried rice on the base of our farmhouse table that has been sitting there since before the hurricane (I think I've pin-pointed it to the cilantro lime rice we ate before we evacuated). I find a piece of elbow pasta sitting in the middle of our kitchen counter after nearly three weeks in the house during which time I have not once cooked elbow pasta. I manage to get bleach spots on the knee of my one pair of nice pants while doing an emergency clean of the refrigerator because we'd run out of ziplock bags and the meat I'd wrapped in saran wrap had leaked everywhere.

So many bananas...

We learn to navigate our new neighborhood, which in these times means spending a lot of time rubbing antibacterial hand sanitizer into hands that are covered with tiny cuts from moving boxes and setting up furniture. The stinging sensation helps keep me awake on days I don't get naps. I also spend a lot of time wondering if masks are going to be the death of the spoken word as I pick up pizza and talk to hardware guys and ask questions in the plant section and repeat myself often.

Comfort books for all.

This tired phase where I sit in the car in the driveway because I don't have the energy to walk into the house will last until the six week mark, and then there will be a return to some semblance of normalcy. I will be normal adult tired instead of moving adult tired. New relationships will have been kicked off, and there will be the now familiar sensation of having settled in somewhat. It helps to have done this before so that there's less freaking out that I'm going to feel like this forever. It also helps to know that this is normal. Other military wives tell me that they have the six week to two months timeline too.

Blythe is my recliner nap buddy.

And then it passes. And we'll be doing school and meeting new friends for playdates and putting in what has become a regular grocery order and feeling the comforting structure of routine settling around us...while waiting on news for our next move. Because this is how the world turns. And honestly, in a world where you can go from one place to the next and meet interesting people and try new things and move furniture around to make a snug home and learn and grow and stretch (and sometimes take naps)...even with masks and missing bunk beds and mystery pasta...it's a pretty great life.

Togetherness

Some of you may be wondering how our transition into a house from the RV might be going. We've been asked few times if we're losing each other now that we're not stacked like sardines into a 35 foot trailer or if we're so used to all that togetherness that we're following each other from room to room as we go throughout the day. The answer is: yes.

This cat loves the togetherness,
but also hid in the garage for two nights
and scared the mess out of us.

It is wonderful to be able to get up in the morning and come downstairs and sit in a chair in an empty room and have a quiet time without worrying that the sounds of my coffee being made are going to wake up the whole family. But it was also wonderful last night curled up on the couch with Twinkle while the twins stretched out on the floor in front of me playing some joint twin version of solitaire (they call it "solitary") and the Man and the Bigs played rummy and UNO at the other end of the couch. I like the togetherness because I like them. With that said, I didn't love when the kids turned the house into a giant nerf war zone as it was just as loud as when they would do it in the RV, and I kept waiting for someone to come falling through the ceiling. Although I will say, I get caught in the cross fire way less now that we're in a house. Still, there's a front yard--and a back one!--and they aren't small. Take your warlike ways to the great outdoors.

I did think that the noise level would decrease upon being in a house. I was wrong. I was on a phone call with a friend the other day, and she commented on how quiet it was (you know, as opposed to the normal background chatter of "Mom! I need a snack!", "Mom! I stubbed my toe and my foot now needs to be amputated!", "Mom! So-and-so keeps putting the body bind curse on me!", "Mom! The twins are trying to sell me to gypsies again!"). I informed her it was quiet because I was hiding in a closet. Please note that I now have a closet large enough for me to sit in. When I got off the phone, though, I realized it wasn't just the closet buffering the noise: the Man had let the kids watch a movie. Screen time: the only way you can lull your children into silence until all five of them are capable of reading to themselves. That and sleep.

All that space: still sitting together on the window seat.

There are things that we are loving about being in a house, and things that we are missing about the RV. I miss the water view, but we have a hillside of beautiful trees right out our window. I miss how quickly I could be done with vacuuming, but this just means the kids are being put to good use for manual labor more often. I miss knowing our neighbors, but hopefully we will get to know these too (though COVID makes that a bit more challenging). I miss my little pallet garden, but we have house plants now. I miss all our Florida friends, of course, but there is texting and FaceTime and zoom calls and hopefully one day a guest room that's actually got furniture (instead of just boxes of books and empty mattresses) where they can stay when they come see us.

Happiness is green glasses,
napkin rings, and a real table.

I'm loving having everything in one place although I keep not finding things that I thought had made it through the move/hurricane (waffle iron, waffle iron, where did you go?). I'm loving having bookshelves again, even though it makes me want to buy more books, especially since the libraries here aren't open yet. I am loving (more than I can say) having a washer/dryer in the house so that I can do as much laundry as I want whenever I want--and not have to pay for anything other than the water bill. I am loving having a piano again--and it even got tuned yesterday!--and a place to play my flute without feeling like all of Fam Camp might be listening in. I am loving being able to put an entire meal's worth of food in the oven at one time (see last post about the pizza). I'm loving (for real) not having the cat litter underneath my daughter's bed (even if technically my daughter doesn't have a bed yet since it's taking five years to get here). I am loving having dinner at a table where we can look at each other (and not straight at a TV), where all the food fits on the table, where the water glasses don't spill if you accidentally bump the table by crossing your legs. I am loving that half of my kids can sleep in if they want to because the other half come downstairs to harass me into making breakfast instead of causing a racket pretty much on top of the sleeping children.

And speaking of, said children are now downstairs harassing me into making breakfast. So on that note: happy Wednesday!

Moving Blurbs

It was our last official day in the RV when I started this blog post (so if you were waiting until the last moment to buy this thing, you're now going to have to purchase from a different state), and I was sitting with a cat in my lap watching the dawn light stretch the tree shadows long and slim while using my cell phone hotspot to access blogger because our internet decided our last week in the RV was the most appropriate time to crap out on us. Really, it wasn't wrong. 

Change of Command: ignore the kids' faces

 

Had to take the dog for one last morning walk on the shore

 

Now, however, I'm sitting in our very comfortable, very well used recliner that has been rescued from the storage unit in which it has been languishing for almost two years, and I'm watching the sunlight creep up the hill covered in tall unbroken trees that I can see out of the huge bay window in our sitting room in the new house. That's right: there's a sitting room and a living room because we're fancy now. Also, we've officially moved.

Road trip buddy

  

It's been several weeks since I wrote last and a lot of big stuff has been happening in the world. Those two things are related. So, yes, while part of the reason I haven't written this month is just that it's been incredibly busy and I have been incredibly tired, the other reason is that I prefer to process slowly and quietly in my own head and not feel like I have to comment in public on something I'm still thinking about in private. With that said, this blog is not going to be about big things, but just about little things. But if you'd like to talk to me about big things, you missed my window while I was on the road driving. Kidding: you can still call and I will take a much needed break from putting together new furniture--and I will love getting to hear a familiar voice on the phone.

So much space!

 

With that said, some blurbs for the move:

• This has been an interesting move as it's happened in shifts, so when I got asked how the move prep going, I told them that it was going something like this: workworkwork...wait... wait... wait... workworkwork.... wait... wait... wait... workworkwork. But in between there's a lot of SOCIALIZE!!! and then a few rounds of recovery.
• Speaking of, self isolating did not prepare me for these last few weeks of intense pre-move socialization. My badly exercised peopling muscle got a real workout those last few days in Florida.

      My fellow introvert enjoying his quiet.
He asked me to schedule in down time those last couple weeks...
                           and it was much needed.                                       

• The last week before the move, the Man took a trailer up to the new house with mattresses in it and a few boxes of things I no longer needed in the RV. I packed nonessentials like extra clothes (don't need all those sweaters right now in FL) and lamps and school books. Guess what was left on my nightstand: a stack of around a dozen books. I know what I cannot do without. The coffee pot was also still in residence and doing double time.
• It was the curse of the last week in the RV: three wet beds (all different children--moving is stressful) and a cat barf in the middle of our bed. Every time I hoped that it would be the last time dragging our laundry to the lodge, behold, there was more laundry. What I am really enjoying in the new house: yes! the washer and dryer!

Reunited with my ginormous wok!

• I put three pizzas in the oven at the same time Friday night. I was drunk with power.
• When you can't get a massive dresser up the twisty stairs, you turn it into a hutch for the kitchen...which really needed more cabinet space anyway. But then you laugh about how you needed more cabinet space when you've spent the last year and a half in an RV.

I have since fixed that drawer...

• Unpacking a storage unit that you didn't really pack leads to lots of excitement and surprises. There were things that I had totally forgotten about, and then things missing the I expected to see (vacuum cleaner and waffle iron, I'm looking at you...except not).
• It's the little joys: like finding out that the bunk beds you ordered for the boys come with the drawers already assembled, so you don't have to do that part, and having kids who don't mind helping you screw in hidden cams, and taking the kids for a short walk in the woods without having to leave the neighborhood, and Littles and Tiny agreeing to skip the majority of the Frodo/Sam parts when rewatching Return of the King late at night in bed with popcorn.

We emerged with only one tick,
so we'll take that as a win.

• The best thing about this move has been moving with a couple of our favorite families and moving to one of our all-time favorites (even if they're leaving us at the end of the month). It's made it so much less emotionally draining, knowing that I didn't leave behind our entire support system like we normally do. When I say that's the best thing, I mean that it's even better than moving into a house from the RV, and so that tells you something.
• Some things are worth time and effort. It's good to figure out what those things are on the front end.

Hanging all those pictures in a grid pattern is somehow worth it.

• Sometimes Amazon sends you the wrong item and you unpack 80% of the box before you realize that it's definitely a twin and trundle and not a twin over twin bunk bed. This can ruin your day, or you can take a deep breath, resist the urge to slam your head against the wall repeatedly, and do your best to Tetris the pieces back in the box so it can be returned. You will then spend the rest of the next 48 hours trying to explain to the three year old why her bed isn't set up yet. Dark chocolate will help. And this is still only a blip in the radar.
• Setting up a house with the guy you've been married to for a dozen years is way easier than setting up a house with the guy you've been married to for only a handful of months. Even if said guy has to do a quick run up to Boston the week you move in. This is just a fact. However, he still doesn't appreciate when I offer to race him to see who can get a nightstand put together first.
• Want to be a real adult: go buy blinds. I have now reached new levels.

Behold our fancy sitting room.
Also, behold those blinds I bought. 
If you can see them because I pull them up the second
I get out of bed.

• Real excitement means a water leak through the ceiling your first night in a new house. 
• When you've lost both wheels on the front of your piano, you can prop it on your husband's International Law book and your Norton's Short Fiction.
• This is not move related but Rosie told me the other day that when she turns into a baby, she will not like bananas. Just thought you should know.

Pets make moving better.

• There is something really satisfying about drinking a cold glass bottled coke out of a wine glass after a hard day of work. There is something less satisfying about lying in bed with your eyes glued open because you can't sleep from the caffeine because YOU ARE OLD.
• Necessity is the mother of invention. I learn this every move. Also, just because you assure your husband that there is a printer in the storage unit (and you are right) doesn't mean that the printer actually still works (so in the long term, he is also right). Not sure how those two things are related.

It's amazing: I can walk around this bed without stubbing my toes!

And now, having gotten myself back on the blogging bandwagon, I'm going to throw some pictures in this thing, and be done. The kids are up and needing breakfast, and today is Sunday, my last day to secure house plants while the Man is still out of town and can't stop me, and also a day to rest and say thank you and not put together any furniture or unpack any boxes or clean away any dust or cobwebs. Also, I realize that this post is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our move and the last two months, but this is about all the emotional energy I have left to write so...for now, it is enough.

We are happy to be home.